


if you fuckin' with this girl, then you better be paid

by ElasticElla



Category: Knives Out (2019)
Genre: (racism ableism etc.), Canon-Typical Behavior, F/F, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:00:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23788246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElasticElla/pseuds/ElasticElla
Summary: Joni has been trying, like really hard, not to freak out. Her entire brand is based on a very specific boho-chic-stumbled-into-riches vibe.
Relationships: Linda Drysdale/Joni Thrombey
Comments: 21
Kudos: 39
Collections: What Fen Do (Instead of Going Outside), When Death Loves Flamingos





	if you fuckin' with this girl, then you better be paid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [madeinessos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/madeinessos/gifts).



> title is ofc from kanye's gold digger

Joni has been trying, like really hard, not to freak out. Her entire brand is based on a very specific boho-chic-stumbled-into-riches vibe. It hasn’t started paying off, yet, but she gets free stuff in the mail all the time. So she’s totally on her way. She had a plan dammit, a three-pronged instagram-facebook-twitter attack. It was going to be epic. 

And then Harlan had to go and write her out of the will. 

(Also, kill himself, that fucked shit up too.)

She’s down to barely a hundred thousand in her account, could have that cleaned out within the month. Her brand will be ruined – what will she do? _Work_? The horror. 

Not to mention Meg has her whole school thing. Since apparently she couldn’t be like the other good Brown students and catch herself a sugar daddy – or mommy, Joni doesn’t give a fuck as long as her girl is taken care of – what was the point in even going to an ivy league if she wasn’t going to exploit her connections? Joni knows for a fact the son of the eighth richest man in the world goes to school with her. Fuck, she thought she taught Meg better. 

Joni’s been thinking about the Thrombeys. Ideally she can get one of them to sponsor her. More ideally, Meg too. (That said, Meg only has a year left, worst case she can take out student loans or whatever.) Now that the little Mexican hussy stole their family fortune, Joni’s been judging them each on their individual fortunes. 

Suffice to say, it isn’t looking good. 

While Walt could easily be tempted away from his wife – the ugly cripple hasn’t been fucked in ages – he doesn’t have any money. Everything he did was tied up with the publishing company. On the prettier side, Donna is a traditional homemaker with traditional tastes, has nothing worthwhile to offer. Ransom is in jail of course, has no money to speak of. Richard, an easy philanderer, doesn’t hold the purse strings. 

It leaves one obvious, very attractive target. One that made her own fortune, the only one that didn’t actually need the inheritance. 

“Joni,” Linda greets dryly, “I didn’t know you were coming by.” 

She holds up the bottle of Grand Patron, a pricey enough gift from a non-family member that should grant her entrance, wrapping Linda in a hug. “I heard about Richard. I am _so sorry_. I brought this for a little girls’ day.” 

Linda sighs, getting out of the hug but giving the tequila an assessing look. “Alright. Let’s go out back to the gazebo.” 

Joni tries not to look too smug, knows from experience how much the money-havers hate that. They don’t want to feel played, but idolized. (She fell into the same trap once, back when Neil was alive. God, she was so foolish then.)

The gazebo is truly a small wooden house without walls. There’s a bar, a set of cushioned chairs, a daybed, even a fire pit. Joni claims one of the lounge chairs, isn’t going to settle on the bar stools, needs to be here longer than that. 

Linda sets two glasses on the small table between them, filling them both up, “You start with that hippie bullshit and you’re out. Got me?” 

Joni takes one of the glasses, “Your heartbreak, your rules.” 

Linda snorts, throws back half her drink in favor of replying. 

Joni takes it as the success it is, sipping her own. It’s a very nice tequila. Not six hundred dollars nice, but few liquors are. 

It isn’t until the next round that Linda talks, and Joni’s throat has been burning, swallowing all the comments she wants to make. It’s more important to land Linda, she keeps reminding herself, her new mantra. 

Linda is glaring off into the distance, every inch a scorned wife. “The girl is twenty-two. _Twenty-two_. Who knows how he’s paying her, and he isn’t even discrete. I could find out but…” 

“But what?” Joni prompts. 

Her lips purse, yet she still answers, “What’s the point?” Her eyes meet hers, sharp and flinty, “Who cares if she’s a model or a student or a runaway? It doesn’t change the fact that Richard doesn’t value our vows, all this time I’ve been loyal and he went out and…” 

“Mhmm.” 

“And there were people. Realtors at conferences, single parents at those stupid bake sales I ‘had’ to attend. Interns even, so many fucking interns that would have done anything. But I didn’t touch any of them, I was good, I honored our vows. And for Richard, fucking Dick, to have an affair…” 

“You must want to get back at him,” Joni muses. 

Linda barks out a laugh. “The paperwork’s already in his study.” 

“Huh.” 

Linda refills their glasses, shooting her a look. “Huh what?” 

Joni shrugs, “I just thought you’d want to get back at him more… directly. You seem the ‘you trip me, I stab you’ type, y’know?” 

Her lips quirk up into a smile, and she drinks more. 

Joni nudges her foot with hers, “C’mon, it’s only us. Tell me, who would you pick?” 

“For an affair?” Linda says, incredulous. As if it had never crossed her mind, as if she hadn’t listed all the people she could’ve had sex with mere moments ago. 

“To win,” Joni says, and Linda smirks just the way Neil would’ve at the question. (The two are so identical it hurts sometimes, other times she laughs at how Walt was raised the same but an utter failure.)

“It’d have to be a woman,” Linda starts, and Joni’s lips tremble as she tries not to grin. Oh, this would be too easy. 

“Someone younger, someone who rejected Richard once upon a time. A woman would eat away at his insecurity in a way a man couldn’t, have him questioning our entire marriage.” 

“Diabolical,” Joni says, chiming their glasses together. “You should make a short list.” 

Linda rolls her eyes, “And then deal with some thirty year old falling in love with me? No.” 

Joni shrugs, “Y’know back at the first Christmas party Neil brought me to, Richard thought I was with the help. Grabbed my ass and offered me a thousand dollars to blow him.”

With a clatter, Linda drops her empty glass on the table. The corner of her mouth snarled into an almost smile, “The tequila was a nice touch.” 

“What?” 

“Did you really think I’d be that desperate? To fuck my dead brother’s _widow_?” 

“Oh,” Joni gasps, eyes wide, every inch the idiot Linda believes her to be. “No, no – I meant your housekeeper. If he was going after staff at a holiday party, surely he tried at home first?” 

There’s a deep red flush on Linda’s cheeks as she fishes out her cigarette case, and she’s never seen the woman ill-composed. Watches stress melt away as she takes that first inhale, and god, Linda is strikingly gorgeous in a way Joni always wanted to be. Like an old movie star, and not for the first time, she can’t help but think what an absolute idiot Richard is. 

Joni polishes off her own glass, “But I could be persuaded.” 

Linda inhales, doesn’t send her away immediately – progress.


End file.
